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austere enthusiasm of his nature, but a mere fortuitous concourse of impulsive and fiery atoms. This, if established on Mr. Swinburne's principles, would simply be anarchy organised, made operative, and systematically employed for destructive purposes. In fact the condition of France, and especially of Paris, during the last three months and at the present time, is the best possible commentary on the political principles more obscurely enunciated in Songs before Sunrise."

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The spirit of the book is in harmony with its weak, passionate, and negative philosophy. Many of the poems are narrow, violent, and bitter beyond anything that has proceeded from Mr. Swinburne's pen. In this respect much of the volume appears to us justly exposed to unqualified reprobation: not on the mere ground of opinion, for honest opinions can be legitimately held, and be opposed and defended in the proper way. If Mr. Swinburne, as the result of his speculative efforts, has arrived at pantheistic views, he is of course at perfect liberty to hold them. If he chooses to deny the reality of moral distinctions, he can in like manner do this, so long as he confines himself to the speculative side of the question-to the calm and philosophical statement of his theoretical opinions. But that he should indulge in coarse and bigoted denunciations of the central religious doctrines held by the great majority of his fellow-countrymen is, to say the least of it, an unpardonable offence against good taste and good feeling. And that he should revile in blasphemous language the object of their worship is an offence of a far deeper dye. This, however, he repeatedly does in his last volume. In the opening poem, The Prelude,' one of the best in the volume, he adopts, it is true, a comparatively calm and philosophical tone; and though the philosophy of the poem would suggest suicide as the only consistent course to be pursued by rational beings, our complaint would have been comparatively groundless if its higher philosophical tone had been kept up in the poems that follow. But this is far enough from being the case; the calmer tone is soon abandoned for that of harsh and violent denunciation. The truth is, Mr. Swinburne is not a philosopher at all; he is not even a thinker; he merely sets other people's thoughts-the floating conceptions that he finds most genial-to his own peculiar music, and in doing so the shriller and harsher tones of his lyre are sure to be heard. We have no space for quotations, and if we had, the most pertinent illustrations could not be quoted. But nowhere in his writings has Mr. Swinburne shown an animus so envenomed, a spirit so weak and essentially sectarian, or used language so intemperate and profane, as in this volume. Such poems, for example, as Before a Crucifix' and The

'Hymn of Man,' are thoroughly fanatical in their wild, blasphemous, and intolerant atheism.

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Mr. Swinburne has, it is true, attempted to justify this feature of his writings by referring to Shelley. We are willing to believe, however, that this reference was made not deliberately, but in a moment of excitement. Notwithstanding all we have said of Mr. Swinburne, we feel persuaded he would not venture to challenge a comparisom with Shelley, even in this particular. However this may be, the phrases Mr. Swinburne quotes from Shelley all occur in his earliest poem, written when he was still almost a boy-a poem never published by himself, and the publication of which by others called forth his express and indignant censure. In his later writings no such expressions occur, while his latest show a very considerable change of tone on the whole subject. Mr. Swinburne has been before the world as an author for a much longer time than the whole period of Shelley's public life, yet his last productions are in spirit and temper the worst. For the rest, any attempt at a serious comparison of Swinburne to Shelley would oblige one to exclaim, not as a figure of speech but in sober truth, Hyperion to a Satyr.' Shelley had wild and perverted views; but his mind was pure, and his poetry, the reflex of his mind, has upon it the very bloom of purity. Had he taken up even Mr. Swinburne's unsavoury subjects, their grossness would have been almost purged away by the exquisite grace and delicacy of his touch. On the other hand, Mr. Swinburne's method of treatment would almost inevitably defile even the most sacred relationships and experiences of life. is comparatively easy to imitate Shelley's imperfections without sharing the higher qualities of his mind, or approaching the peerless perfection of his noblest work. A writer of verse may produce imperfect lines, indulge in repetitions and plagiarised passages, and even in intemperate denunciations of existing institutions, without having much in common with Shelley. We are glad, indeed, to think that Mr. Swinburne has not derived his inspiration from Shelley, or from any English author or English school of poetry. He is rather an Alfred de Musset without his finesse and grace. What is most distinctive in Mr. Swinburne's work is derived from the corrupted school of French art and French poetry, which, with other influences traceable to a common root, has contributed to the temporary ruin of the finest country and most gifted people in Europe. The principles of the school which Mr. Swinburne represents would, indeed, if successful, not only overturn all existing order, but in the end prove fatal to art, literature, and civilisation itself.

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ART. IV.-Burton's Ilistory of Scotland. Vols. V., VI., VII. Edinburgh: 1870.

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THE 'HE former volumes of Mr. Burton's history closed with the imprisonment of Queen Mary in Lochleven Castle. The explosion of Kirk-o'-Field had blown into air all those farreaching schemes for the elevation of Mary to the throne of Elizabeth, and the restoration throughout the island of the old faith, which had dictated the policy of the Catholics, and had taken firm hold of many who, though nominally Protestants, were above all things enthusiastic Scotchmen. The name of the Scottish Queen was no longer a name to charm with: a murderess and adulteress could not be the champion of a great religious reaction. The spirits of the Catholics are broken,' writes De Silva, quoted by Mr. Froude. Should it turn out that she is guilty, her party in England is gone; and by her means there is no more chance of a restoration of religion.' True, these schemes revived at a later time; but henceforward they were vain dreams. They lured to destruction the subtle Lethington; they won the chivalrous Grange from his loyalty; but they never came within the sphere of human probabilities. Varied as were the phases of the long game which succeeded, we can now see plainly that, after the crime of Kirk-o'-Field, Mary never had a chance of winning the great stake which from the first she had set herself to play for.

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The after-fortunes of Mary in her native country Mr. Burton relates with brief distinctness. The romantic events of the escape from Lochleven-the muster at Hamilton-the overthrow of Langside, find in him no very congenial chronicler. But he dwells with characteristic minuteness on every aspect of the imprisonment; he specifies the nature of the stone with which Lochleven Castle was built; he describes the advantages of its situation as regards supplies of mutton, fish, and game; he altogether disbelieves that the limited accommodation of the castle could have allowed of the birth, concealment, and removal of a daughter-the result of the alliance with Bothwell. He thinks there is no evidence that Mary was treated with harshness. But the completeness of her seclusion points to a very close watchfulness; while the fact that two daughters of the lady of the castle were her bedfellows-which Mr. Burton somewhat mysteriously explains as required by the hard rules of political necessity'-shows that her life must have been exceedingly uncomfortable. But we

are without any real knowledge on these matters, and must rest content with what the insight of genius has revealed to us in the pages of the Abbot.'

After the impetuosity of her adherents had rushed upon defeat at Langside, nothing remained for Mary but flight. France or England was an obvious alternative: Mr. Burton starts an interesting speculation as to the results of her having sought a refuge in Spain :

'Could she have fled to Spain, a scene of another kind might have opened. There she would have found a monarch who, if it be possible, was more earnest than herself in reverence for the doctrine, that the one object, both for the sake of this world and the next, to which a Christian sovereign should be devoted, was the restoration of the old Church to its power and splendour. The possibilities that such a conjuncture might have opened are so interesting that they can hardly be passed in silence. Might not an impulse have been given to his sluggish nature, so that the great blow he was to strike in England might have been earlier and more aptly timed? There was no room, it is true, for the revival of the old matrimonial project between Mary and Don Carlos, which Catherine of Medici had wrought so hard to defeat. The poor mad youth was at the crisis of his tragic fate. It was about six weeks after her escape that, if we are to accept what we are now told, his throat was cut in the Escurial, not by assassins, but by the ministers of Spanish justice. But presently there was to be another opening. Within six months after this crisis in Mary's fate, her sisterin-law, Isabella of France, the Queen of Spain, died. She also became the tragic heroine of a romance of love and crime; but history gradually dropped the dark suspicions on her name, and left them to the world of fiction. Though the daughter of the terrible Catherine, she left the reputation of a faithful wife and a gentle queen. Among those who cherished the memory of her virtues, they were enhanced by the fervency with which on her death-bed she expressed her thankfulness in being the partner of one whom no deceptious frailties of mercy or remorse had ever checked in the sacred task of extirpating heresy. To such views Mary was one who would have given support quite as sincere and far more active. Indeed, just before the Queen of Spain's death, the two had been holding some genial correspondence, in which the restoration of the Church was put foremost of human duties. At that time Philip was not yet forty-two years old, and though he had been three times married, the son destined to succeed him had not yet been born. If it be said that these speculations on the possible consequences of events which never came to pass are away from the purpose of history, it may be pleaded that they deserve a passing notice, since they were contingencies which both the thinking and the acting men of the time must have studied. There was nothing in the possible future of Mary's relations with France and Spain that did not then affect the present in Scotland and in England too.' (Vol. v. pp. 120, 121.)

Mary Stuart fled to England in May 1568.

From that

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time till the fall of Edinburgh Castle in May 1573, her fortunes were closely united with those of her native country. At any period during these five years the future of Scotland might have taken almost any shape, according as Elizabeth had dealt with her royal captive. Hardly less did the peace and security of England seem, at the time, to depend on the same decision. No wonder, therefore, that the decision was anxiously watched for then, and has been eagerly canvassed since. An enthusiastic school of recent English writers maintains that Elizabeth, in her dealings with Mary, acted not only with wisdom, but with justice. We are old-fashioned enough to demur on both points. The tragic end is defensible on many grounds, but its defensibility seems to us the exact measure of the guilt of the earlier policy. The necessity for the execution is the deepest condemnation of the long captivity. But, irrespective of this consideration, it is vain to dispute that Mary's detention in England was in violation of all public or municipal law. Mr. Hallam says, in his calm, impartial style, which in this controversy gives the reader such a sense of relief, that policy was supposed, as frequently happens, to indicate a measure absolutely repugnant to 'justice, that of detaining her in perpetual custody. Whether this policy had no other fault than its want of justice may 'reasonably be called in question.' We cannot however concur with Mr. Hallam in his further remark, that to have restored 'her by force of arms, or by a mediation which would certainly have been effectual, to the throne which she had compulsorily 'abdicated, was the most generous, and would perhaps have ⚫ turned out the most judicious proceeding.' This course, doubtless the most generous, might have proved the most judicious, but for the incurable duplicity of Mary and her supporters. Had they been only moderately honest, or had they succeeded in concealing their dishonesty! Their promises indeed were fair, but there was no thought of keeping them. Had Mary been restored, the old game would have been played over again -the revival of Popery, the assaults on Elizabeth's throne. That this would have been so was proved to the Ministers of Elizabeth under the hands of the plotters themselves. Therefore she could say with truth that to set this person at liberty and restore her to her throne would be an act of dangerous 'folly which no indifferent person should in conscience require.' The wisest course, as it seems to us, would have been the impartial neutrality of sending her to France. There the hatred of the Queen-mother would have kept her powerless and harmless. Had Elizabeth committed Mary to the keeping

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